YEA 5th Edition, Day 2: Waste Management, Sustainable Consumption and a Visit to The Loops
On 24 July, the Young Environment Ambassador (YEA) Programme turned its attention to two of Hong Kong's most pressing environmental challenges: waste management and sustainable consumption. Students experienced a fruitful day, filled with informative talks, interactive activities and a site visit.
The morning began with a training session on the current state of waste management in Hong Kong, giving students a clearer picture of how the city handles its waste and the challenges it still faces. We were pleased to have Green Earth lead the session with professionalism and expert knowledge.
To help turn knowledge into real-life examples, Green Earth's staff hosted an interactive board game session called Universal Recycling Rangers. The game allowed students to explore various methods of everyday waste disposal, along with the principles of waste reduction and recycling. Students responded enthusiastically, describing the game as exciting and inspiring, and noting that it helped them look more deeply into the factors that contribute to waste management.
After a short break, the focus shifted to sustainable consumption. Kitty Tam, Programme Lead at Civic Exchange, and Damon Lee, our Research Assistant, delivered an inspiring talk introducing students to how everyday choices — from what they buy to how they dispose of it — ripple outward to shape demand, resource use and waste at a much larger scale, before leading a discussion on practical ways students could shift their own habits. Damon also highlighted eco-labels that appear frequently in daily life, such as the Hong Kong Energy Label and the FSC label, which help consumers identify eco-friendly and sustainable products.
Following lunch, the group headed out for a field visit to The Loops, a recycling centre where students saw first-hand how recyclable materials are collected, sorted and processed. We thank Mr Jorch Wong, founder of The Loops, for hosting the students at this event. The visit included two engaging sessions: an interactive seminar on waste management, where students learned about examples of plastic recycling and downcycling, followed by a short walking tour of the facility to see The Loops' daily operations. Seeing the journey of waste beyond the recycling bin gave the ambassadors a tangible sense of what happens after they throw something away, and why sorting correctly at source makes such a difference. Students would quote “It is my first time to visit a recycling centre and its impressive that there are young people willing to develop their career on it, makes me thought about the excuses of other teenagers unwilling to recycle” “I love the site visit very much, I learnt today that there are actually many resources in the society that could be used or recycled that people don’t know most of the time.”
Through dynamic peer collaboration and the inspiring guidance from our programme helpers, students demonstrated a more mature, analytical capacity when addressing complex environmental issues today. Their profound engagement and curiosity underscore a promising path forward for climate leadership.
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